Need for Speed Undercover
Need for Speed: Undercover is the 12th game in the Need for Speed series released on November 18, 2008. The game went back to the earlier design elements of Need for Speed: Most Wanted after the lower than anticipated sales of Need for Speed: ProStreet. It was released on November 18th in North America, and on November 20th in Europe. It was released on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Wii, PC, iPod touch and mobile phones. Gameplay The game moves away from the simulation based gameplay used in ProStreet. A new handling physics engine was introduced in the game known as the 'Heroic Driving Engine'. Vehicles in Undercover can directly turn 180° whilst performing hand brake turns. Free Roam Undercover takes place in the fictional Tri-City. It is divided into four major districts; Gold Coast Mountains , Palm Harbor, Port Crecent and Sunset Hills. The game only takes place during the day. The city is connected by long highways that follow the perimeter of the city. Event Types Players can participate in career mode, Quick Race Mode, in the Challenge series or Multiplayer. Single-Player *Circuit Races - Up to eight players complete the specified number of laps along a closed track. *Sprint Races - Up to eight players compete to be the first across the finish line in a closed A to B event. *Highway Battle - Players have to battle against their rival as well as congested traffic and cops in outrun events along Tri-City's highways. *Outrun - Players have to stay ahead of their rivals for a certain amount of time. *Criminal Scramble - Players participate as the cops and chase down racers. (Nintendo DS Only) *All-Points - Players participate as the cops and chase down street gang bosses. (Nintendo DS Only) *Chase Down - Players have to bust criminals and chase down their rivals at the same time. (Playstation Portable, Playstation 2 and Wii only) Multiplayer *Cops and Robbers - Two teams of up to four Cops and Racers must attempt to deliver a series of money flags. *Sprint Races - Up to eight players compete to be the first across the finish line in a closed A to B event. *Highway Battle - Players have to battle against their rival as well as congested traffic and cops in outrun events along Tri-City's highways. Pursuit System Police chases in Undercover are similar in gameplay to those seen in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Players will gain bounty by damaging and destroying police vehicles as well as property. Plot The player is an unnamed undercover police agent working for the Tri-City Police Department and has been tasked to eliminate the street racing scene in Tri-City. The player is guided by their commanding officer - "Chase Linh." The player must first earn a reputation by winning several races around the city. The player is tasked to steal cars and immobilise racers for big crime bosses such as Chau Wu as enter deeper into the underground street racing world. Chau Wu asks the player to hijack a car that was previously stolen from him. The player instead challenges two racers known as Hector and Zack. Hector's sister - Carmen - wants the player to take a BMW M6 stolen from Chau Wu because of her fear of Wu. Wu found out that the player took his M6 and phoned the player to return the car as soon as possible. Wu uses Chase Linh as a hostage as a bargaining chip. The player delivers the M6 but has it revealed that both Chase Linh and Wu have been working together. Linh shoots Wu in cold blood and escapes in the M6 with his money. The player is tasked with pursuing Chase Linh whilst they too are pursued by the police who are under the belief that Wu was murdered by the player. Eventually Chase Linh's commander - Lt. Keller - is informed that it was Linh that killed Wu and diverts the police force to track down Linh. Linh is eventually apprehended was hauled in under the charge of murder and other criminal activities shown in Wu's PDA. The player was praised by the Tri-City Police Department for successfully accomplishing their task and was asked by Carmen to take her to a University. Development Electronic Arts CEO, John Riccitiello, stated that the previous release in the series (ProStreet) was only "an okay game...was not good" and that Undercover would "be a much better game". He stated Undercover would have a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors because the Need for Speed development team had been split up into two teams, both of which would work on a "two-year" development cycle with future titles, alternating releases between them. Riccitiello stated he was "torturing" the development team with a tight development cycle in the past. "When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on Undercover (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team (that finished ProStreet) would start working on the next title." Riccitiello also stated Undercover took inspiration from action films such as The Transporter, with a large embedded narrative. Frank Gibeau (President of the EA Games label) stated during development that due to the fact that the sales of ProStreet didn't live up to EA's hopes for the game, the Need for Speed franchise would go back to its roots (although Undercover was already being developed before ProStreet). "John Doyle (Developer at EA Black Box) said that Undercover would feature a brand new game mechanic and a 'Most Wanted-ish' sandbox style of gameplay." The game was also provided with an all new damage system. Andy Blackmore (Senior Vehicle Concept Artist at EA) explained how one of the Porsche cars that was "conceptualized" in the game was then brought to life for the game from a brief description to being approved by Porsche. Reception Reception of Undercover was mixed. There were complaints about the game's easy difficulty, repetitiveness, and poor texture maintenance. One reviewer went as far as recommending the game's rivals such as Rockstar Games' Midnight Club: Los Angeles and EA's own Burnout Paradise. The IGN review was critical of the PS3 version of Undercover giving it a 4/10, calling it a "poor game with a ton of problems" and with "practically no redeeming qualities". IGN also commented on how the reason for having an open world environment was lost because a player could only start an event from the map. However, the Xbox 360 and the PC versions received a higher score in contrast to the PS3 version in the IGN review, due to the fewer severe problems that occurred. The 1UP.com review called the game only "fairly successful," but praised the games selection of cars and tighter handling on the vehicles. However, the "leveling" system that unlocks cars and upgrades was criticized for resembling "grinding". In general, sparse traffic, wide-open roads, and poor AI led to complaints about extremely low difficulty, however, one reviewer commented on how this may have been a marketing ploy to target a wider audience. The reception to the live-action cut scenes was almost universally negative, with many critics noting that the videos were poorly acted and lacked purpose. Many have even compared the cut scenes to a "Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film". The lack of connection between the crime fighting undercover cop story and the racing game play was particularly criticized by IGN who said, "You ... run missions where you steal cars, make 'special' deliveries and things like this now and again, but you never actually see any sequences that show how the cops are putting the evidence together or anything of that sort. Chase Linh will tell you what you need to do to get on the inside of a racing group in order to get dirt on them, and then after a race she'll say 'We have enough, let's move in.' you're left asking: How did that help at all?" Finally, the in-game frame rate received little praise, and GameSpot particularly criticized the PS3 version for this problem resulting in a lower score on the platform compared to the Xbox 360 and PC versions. Links *Need for Speed Undercover at US.PlayStation.Com *Official website *''Need for Speed: Undercover'' at Electronic Arts website Category:Pc Games Category:2008 video games